The Infrastructure Problem
The East of England Plan proposes 124,000 extra buildings across Essex, predominantly on Green Belt land. With or without Harlow North it is proposed that there should be at least an extra 2,700 crushing Roydon and Nazeing. It also suggests that up to 41% of the new housing will be for 'migrants' from outside Essex (82% of the projected population growth is also from 'migrants' from outside the region).
These plans are unsustainable. We simply don't have the infrastructure - roads, railways, schools and hospitals - and we don't have any guarantees this will appear either. It has been revealed that our sewerage system could not cope without millions of pounds of extra investment. The effects of additional run-off from the proposed housing will create additional pressures on Harlow's existing sewers and danger of flooding.
And where is this money coming from? Money from developers will not raise more than a fraction, and we already face cuts in our existing public services - our local NHS and school closures are recent examples.
In Harlow our roads are already clogged up - my argument is that before we can even consider additional housing, we need to look at ensuring we build the infrastructure first. We already desperately need a relief road, to a junction 7a at the M11 to help reduce traffic in Harlow.
Harlow's roads never envisaged traffic volumes today. Second Avenue, Elizabeth Way and the A414 were designed to be widened to dual carriageways, which has never happened. The Industrial estates now generate far more heavy goods traffic, as do the super-stores, and all heavy goods traffic from Hertford heading for the M11 via the A414, mixes with additional commuter traffic from growth such as Church Langley and New Hall and is all funnelled into one road, the A414, with only one exit/entry to and from Harlow - Junction 7 - to the M11/M25. This means that any hold up on either motorway at peak traffic times gridlocks Harlow's traffic within 30 minutes.
An additional junction (7a) on the M11 could take most of the HGV traffic away from Harlow and provide access to the M11 for up to half of Harlow's commuters. While motorway hold-ups will remain a problem, the chances of it affecting northbound and southbound traffic is reduced with two access points rather than the present one.
Why a Southern Road would be wrong
Southern Relief Road
A Southern Relief Road has been suggested, stretching from the Harlow M11 Junction through Roydon and reaching to the A414. (See Below).
Reasons why I oppose this course of action:
- A bypass will cause the merging of Harlow with north London and ensure that Harlow quickly becomes a mere suburb of London rather than a sustainable community in its own right.
- The visual impact of the bypass will be extreme, crossing as it would the high ground at Epping Upland and the wide flood plain of the Stort Valley.
- The environmental damage will be unacceptable, destroying, inter alia, special landscape areas, three Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), part of the Lea Valley Regional Park, a listed park and gardens, part of Epping Forest and four Wildlife Sites.
- The economic impact on numerous existing businesses will be excessive. The survival of farms, greenhouse businesses and leisure businesses will all be put at risk.
- A number of historic buildings including a Grade 1 church, a Scheduled Ancient Monument and numerous listed houses including at least two which are Grade II* will either be destroyed or put at risk.
- The bypass would have a devastating impact on the rural communities of Roydon, Jack's Hatch, Broadley Common, Nazeing, Epping Green, Epping Upland and Stanstead Bury as well as on the residential suburbs of southern and western Harlow. Any chance of these communities being able to develop in a sustainable way would be destroyed because the proposed southern by-pass would create a natural boundary, soon in-filled by unrestrained development.
- The proposal would destroy an important area of Metropolitan Green Belt.
